PARIS, Feb 4 — Few authors are as beloved as Jane Austen more than two centuries after their death. Her novels have been adapted for film and television, but they are also popular with members of Generation Z, who are turning them into amusing memes on social media.
Just spend a few minutes on the internet, and you’ll soon come across memes based on Jane Austen’s books, especially Pride and Prejudice.
Most of these humorous riffs feature Mr. Darcy, the brooding aristocrat with whom the free-spirited Elizabeth Bennett falls in love.
They are often based on scenes from the two best-known adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, namely the BBC miniseries, in which Mr. Darcy is played by Colin Firth, and the Joe Wright movie with Matthew Macfadyen playing the male lead.
The most famous scene shows Colin Firth taking off his frock coat and jacket before going swimming in a lake.
Fans of the BBC miniseries parody it in memes often praising the British actor’s portrayal of Mr. Darcy: “A truth universally acknowledged: you either love Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy or you’re wrong,” reads one of them, in homage to the very famous opening sentence of Jane Austen’s novel.
A team of researchers from Greece and the UK have looked into this “memification” of Jane Austen’s work in a study recently published in the journal Humanities.
They claim that the English novelist is so popular with the younger generation because her books are full of passages that easily lend themselves to being turned into memes.
These montages are often used to mock certain aspects of contemporary life.
And Jane Austen did the same with her writing: she used humour and irony to attack the mores and manners of her time, and describe the reality of a Georgian society where women could only find their place as wives or mothers.
“Memes are cultural replicators that give audiences mini-bursts of irony,” said one of the study authors, Katerina Kitsi-Mitakou, in a statement.
“Austen’s writing foreshadows this because she often recontextualised other work to tell new truths about society.”
Breathing new life into the work of Jane Austen
In a world where a picture is worth a thousand words, “Janeites” — as Jane Austen enthusiasts are called — use memes to question gender inequality, non-conformity and even virile clichés about masculinity. Many of them see Mr. Darcy as a “deconstructed” man, even if this interpretation is disputed by some Jane Austen scholars.
In any case, Georgios Chatziavgerinos and colleagues have observed a considerable increase in memes based on Mr. Darcy following the emergence of the #MeToo movement.
“Darcy, who balances conventional male qualities with sensitivity and respect for women, is in many ways the perfect antidote to the male behaviour that legitimately prompted such outcry,” explained researcher Georgios Chatziavgerinos.
The craze for memes referencing the world of Jane Austen is all the more astonishing since it touches a very wide community. It is composed, of course, of readers who know the writer’s works inside-out, but also of fans of the book’s small — and big-screen adaptations.
But for Georgios Chatziavgerinos, it is necessary to have read Jane Austen to understand the power of her novels and why they are so suited to the making of memes.
“Lots of authors are memed, but Austen memes have become a cult of their own,” he explains. “A whole generation of young adults have grown up in a digital world where they use this sort of content to bond over shared values.”
He continues: “[Memes] are breathing new life into [Jane Austen’s] work and further cementing her immortality as a writer.” — ETX Studio
